THE FUTURE POPULATION OF INDIA
A LONG-RANGE DEMOGRAPHIC VIEW
India has made great strides in its official goal to slow population growth since the
inception of its population programme in 1952. In 1950, women in India averaged
about six children each in their lifetimes. Today, that average has dropped to about
three. India stands at a unique point in her population history. Both the potential for a
continuation of a declining population growth rate and the certainty of adding many
hundreds of millions to the population due to population momentum exist side-by-side.
It is now virtually certain that India will be the world’s largest country in population,
surpassing China. At independence, India’s population was 350 million. Today, it
stands at 1.1 billion. But how large might it become? Could India’s population reach
two billion, the only country likely to do so?
The purpose of this exercise is to provide glimpses into India’s long-term
population future, projecting population from 2001 to 2101. Such a period is quite
lengthy, but future population size is a direct result of demographic trends generations
before. While projections for a closer time period are more likely to prove accurate,
long-range consequences are necessarily obscured. Recognizing this fact, two
projection scenarios were prepared for this project in order to provide more than a
single possible outcome. The use of two scenarios also avoids the trap of an odd
number of projections. In that case, one will often be considered the “middle,” and, by
implication, the most reasonable, while the other two possibilities, the higher and lower
projection, will be ignored. A two-projection exercise requires us to consider the
assumptions that underlie each projection more seriously, a process that should
always precede looking at the results.
A second purpose of this exercise is to project India’s population state-by-state,
summing to the national total, so that the consequences of differing future trends in
statewise fertility can be seen. The national average total fertility rate (TFR) hides a
wide spectrum of state-level differences. The TFR, or the average number of children
a woman would have in her lifetime at the birth rate of a given year, currently ranges
from 1.7 in Kerala to 4.3 in Bihar. Low-fertility states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu
will contribute little to future population growth and are likely to decline in size. It is in
the higher fertility states, such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh and others that the story of India’s future population size will be told.
By projecting population statewise, the effect of higher-fertility states on the national
growth rate can be taken into account as they grow larger in comparison to the low-
fertility states..
The Nature of Projections
Population projections are not true forecasts of future population, but scenarios that
result from the assumptions made when they are prepared. Assumptions must be
made about declines in the future birth rate (fertility), improvements in mortality (life
expectancy at birth and infant mortality), and migration into or out of an area. For India,
assumptions made about future fertility trends are of the greatest importance. Mortality
has declined to the point where life expectancy at birth nationwide has risen to 64
years. While mortality is likely to continue to improve, its contribution to future
population size will be less important than fertility.
A fundamental principle for this project was to perform the projections with
consistency of method and clarity for all 35 states and Union territories. Thus, future
fertility trends were projected in the same way for all states, as detailed below. Some
exceptions were necessary in migration assumptions for “city-states,” such as
Chandigarh and Delhi.
The projections were performed using the standard cohort-component method,
i.e., by projecting populations by sex and individual age groups. The FIVFIV projection
program, developed by the Population Council, was utilised.
Base Population
The population of each state used as the starting point, or base population, for the
projections is that of the 2001 Census of India by five year age groups and sex. As in
the majority of developing countries, data by age and sex in India suffer from a number
of deficiencies. For one, large numbers of people do not know their age, females
appear to be undercounted, and young children are under-represented. The youngest
age group, ages 0-4, is undercounted or partially omitted, as can be seen in the
population pyramid for all-India in Figure 1.
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